


We Shall Be Monsters

by tisfan



Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Accidental Marriage, Alternate Universe - Reincarnation, Implied/Referenced Torture, M/M, Necromancy, References to Frankenstein, reanimation of the dead, references to Princess Bride
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-04
Updated: 2020-09-12
Packaged: 2021-03-06 15:46:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,606
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26271358
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tisfan/pseuds/tisfan
Summary: So... the problem with being a necromancer is being able to practice one's skill. The local cemeteries won't even let you look at a dead body if you're not a relative. Tony Stark, budding necromancer, forges a marriage certificate for the John Doe so that he can practice his craft. Only to find that it works perfectly. Bucky is No Longer Dead, and 100% interested in staying married...
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Tony Stark, James "Rhodey" Rhodes & Tony Stark
Comments: 113
Kudos: 313
Collections: StarkBucksBingo2020, Tony Stark Flash Bingo





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Starkbucks Bingo: G2: Magic  
> September Flash Bingo: Overachiever

“I’m almost afraid to ask what you want,” Rhodey said, trying to take the piece of paper away from Dummy. 

“I want you to sign my marriage license,” Tony said.

“Yeah, _afraid_ seems like the right response.” He tapped his foot at Dummy. “Give it here. I swear, this creature of yours--”

“People like monkeys. People like ponies,” Tony said. “I don’t understand what was up with all the screaming. And really, he seems pretty happy to eat bananas and sugar cubes. He’s almost even _useful_.”

“You used too many monkeys,” Rhodey pointed out.

Dummy, who had two extra hands and a prehensile tail (to make up for a sad lack of brains) wasn’t really interested in handing anything over at all. Playing Keep-away with Rhodey was more fun than the pony-monkey monster had had in _weeks_. At least since the fire last month, Tony thought.

“Whatever,” Tony said. “Look, necromancy isn’t the most popular wizarding ability ever. One or two per thousand who can even use magic at all. I need practice if I’m ever going to get better.”

“People want you to bring back dead things all the time,” Rhodey said. “Pepper sent over her orchids again.”

“I know, sourpatch, but plants are boring. I don’t want to be a cropduster, walking over fields of wilted soybeans because Farmer Deere is skimping on water. I want--”

“You want to bring _someone_ back,” Rhodey said. He managed to grab the piece of paper, and wrested it out of Dummy’s paw. “You know, there are some people who’d pay you a lot to do that kind of work.”

“There are like, eight problems with that,” Tony complained. “First off, they get really angry if it doesn’t work right--”

“You know this because you’ve tried it?”

“Maybe once,” Tony said. The less thought about that misadventure, the better. In fact, it was only because the clients were trying to bring someone back for less than ethical reasons, and that the reincarnated person nearly killed the client, that Tony hadn’t been arrested on the spot. “Look, most people are dead because they’re supposed to be dead. I need to fix whatever happened first, and then, _maybe_ , I can bring them back. It’s only been done a handful of times successfully. I need time to study the cadaver. I need-- look, just sign the piece of paper, okay? It might be better for you if you have some plausible deniability.”

“If I sign anything, I’m up to my eyebrows… what even is this?”

“Marriage license, I told you,” Tony said. “You’re a colonel, can’t you do marriages the same way a ship’s captain can?”

“I think you don’t know anything about the military,” Rhodey said. “How does being married help you?”

“Some scavs picked up a body out of the river last night,” Tony said. “Unclaimed, unmarked, no ID. No one knows who he is. I thought, I could just go claim him-- married, I could take the body. Bring it back here and get to work.”

“And you think this is a good plan?”

“Look, the guy’s already dead, what’s the worst that could happen?”

“You know you don’t want me to answer that,” Rhodey said.

“Are you going to help me, or not?”

“If it’ll keep me from having to bail your ass out for graverobbing, I suppose,” Rhodey said. And he signed the piece of paper, which was really all Tony wanted in the first place.

Tony wiped his hands off, then waved one finger over the paper, murmuring.

“Now what?”

“Give it a second,” Tony said--

The paper moved through time, as everything was affected by time. It was one of the few side abilities of his death magic; a few moments later and the document was a few years old, dated appropriately. It wasn’t quite magic paper that convinced people to do whatever the holder said -- Pepper had already told him no. But it was official looking and people probably wouldn’t ask too many questions.

“Come on, Dummy,” Tony said. Dummy was a lot stronger than he looked, and made a great cart-puller. “We’re going to go steal a body.”

* * *

“No,” Coulson said, crossing his arms over his chest. “You can’t have--” He hadn’t even waited until Tony knocked on the door. Rude.

“Yes, yes I can,” Tony said. “I’m here to claim the body of my dear, dead husband.” He waved the piece of paper.

“I seriously doubt you have a beloved anything, much less a dead husband,” Coulson said. He at least opened the door and was looking-- well, Coulson had a very good poker face, so it might have been annoyed, but Tony was choosing to interpret it as amusement.

“You wound me! How could you--”

“Stark--”

“Look, here look at the piece of paper,” Tony said.

“Is it another sheet of parchment that says _I can do what I want_?”

“Nope,” Tony said. “Legal marriage document. Now, please, turn over the remains so--”

“Don’t finish that sentence, I really don’t want to know.”

“Come on, Coulson--”

“Okay, okay, but I don’t want to know about it,” Coulson said.

“Thank you,” Tony said, rubbing his hands together gleefully.

“I’m going on a coffee break, he’s in locker 325. Don’t be here when I get back, don’t leave any body parts on the floor. And never, ever ask me for a favor again.”

“You betcha,” Tony said.

Getting the body out of the locker by himself was harder than Tony would have thought, given the number of drunken or magic-comatose friends he’d dragged across campus from time to time.

_Don’t leave any body parts on the floor._

The guy was missing an arm. Well, not missing, since it was tucked neatly into the cabinet behind him, but it wasn’t attached. 

Coulson took a really long time on his coffee break. 

Tony reminded himself to send Coulson a nice present.

But finally he had the body in the wagon and was headed back to his tower.

Tony dragged the body onto his slab in the workshop and started the prep. A complete wash down, checked to make sure all the wounds were closed.

Stitching back on the arm turned out to be a no-go. “I’ll make you a new one later,” Tony told the body, “If I can get you reanimated.” So he sewed up the wound. Letting the reanimated body bleed to death wasn’t going to be useful. 

Of course Coulson -- or the messy death -- had already eliminated most of the blood. Tony drew a few drops of his own and used magic to replicate the required ten pints, plus a little extra, depending on how badly this went. Not much extra; the missing limb would not require any blood.

The same spell Tony used to repair Pepper’s abused orchids was useful here as well. Rolling time back on rot and decay, to bring the organs up to full capabilities.

By the time he was ready to begin, the body was breathing, heart beating, digesting. 

All the things required for life, except the mind behind it. 

Tony pumped the lungs full of air. “Hello, hello in there--”

Nothing.

“I’m sorry, I don’t even know your name--”

No sounds.

“Come on, what-- what do you have that’s worth living for? Why come back? Give me something to work with here, husband-of-mine--”

The body breathed out. “Husband---”

Blue eyes opened and stared at Tony.


	2. Dead All Day

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is your 6:30am Rise from the Dead call...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tony Stark Bingo, September Flash: Adopted: Reincarnation  
> Bucky Barnes Bingo: Y1: Hallucinations

There was pain. 

_Ah, Sergeant Barnes, how good of you to join us. Hold still, this will hurt just a bit, I think._

_Bucky was screaming and he didn’t even know what was happening. A man in a green uniform peeled off his own face, his bleeding, red skull dripping with malice._

_There were bombs going off in the background._

_“He’s responding well to the treatment, physically,” the shorter man said, his eyes invisible behind mother-of-pearl glasses._

_“I don’t care, Doctor,” the red skull said. “Your little experiments with pointless, useless humans are less vital to the movement than the Tesseract weapons.”_

_The doctor didn’t seem quite willing to snarl and sneer at the red skull, but as soon as he left, the doctor’s lip curled._

_“He’s not any fun,” the doctor confided. “But you will be worth a dozen of him. If you survive, you will be the new fist of Hydra.”_

_Bucky couldn’t speak, he could only feel. He ached, everywhere, and there was nothing in his future that said pain would decrease any time soon. He didn’t want to be the fist of Hydra. He didn’t even know what that meant. He didn’t know how he got here--_

There was darkness. 

He had always heard that, when he died, he was supposed to see a tunnel and light, and to go to the light to be welcomed by God.

Bucky wasn’t sure he believed it when he was alive.

He was pretty sure he was dead now.

Yeah.

Definitely dead.

He watched, floating over his own corpse, as the doctor, cursing and sweating, dragged his body out of the lab. Dumped him in the river. A few moments later, threw his disembodied arm in afterward. Behind him, the lab was smoking, catching fire. Covering the evidence.

Bucky didn’t see any bright light, and even if he did, he seemed somehow still tied to his own corpse, floating along the river behind it, unable to do anything more, like a baby with an umbilical cord, unable to do anything but go where the mother went.

Being dead was boring as fuck, Bucky decided.

The really annoying part was there was shit-all he could do about it. He couldn’t get away from his own body. No one could see him. There wasn’t even like a celestial library he could check a book out from.

And he didn’t sleep, either.

He was air, and thought, and he could do nothing.

It was a total cheat.

Someone should discuss this with God. Pointedly, and preferably with a heavy bat.

He followed his body until it was picked up by someone; they even noticed his arm, which was a nice gesture , but Bucky thought entirely unnecessary. What was he going to do with it? The ghost-thing that made up his thoughts still had all his bits attached. He was even wearing his old clothes, his favorite blue coat and a pair of brown dungarees.

_Residual self-image._

They took his body to the morgue, which was both horrific -- the undertaker cut him open to determine cause of death (unknown) -- and boring. He couldn’t get too far away from his body, so when the corpse was shoved into the locker for storage, Bucky was stuck in the locker two above. Which was empty at least, so he wasn’t laying in the middle of someone else’s dead body.

He couldn’t hear the argument going on in the morgue, just that there was someone there. It would have been nice, maybe. Less boring, at least.

But finally his body was dragged out and Bucky got a look at a pretty man with a dirty face, wild hair and a-- pony-monkey monster?

_I’m so glad I’m dead, this is ridiculous. Can I get out of the whole afterlife thing?_

That man dragged him off to yet another lab. Great. 

_No, no, no, whatever you’re doing, I don’t want any part of it, can we--_

_What are you doing?_

He watched as the man pumped blood into the corpse. Sewed up all the wounds. “Sorry about your arm, dude, I’ll make you a new one later.”

“Hello, hello in there? I’m sorry, I don’t even know your name.”

_Bucky. Not that I can tell you, so why are you even asking?_

“Give me something to work with, husband-of-mine--”

Bucky scowled. What are you even talking about, I’m no one’s--

His lungs ached, his mouth was filled with the most disgusting taste, his skin hurt everywhere.

With a sudden thud, his heart started beating.

“--husband?”

He opened his eyes, back in his own body.

Alive.

“Holy shit,” the man said. “Holy shit, oh my fucking God. It worked. It worked, it-- You’re alive.”

“It’s been a shitty day that way,” Bucky said, “So like, thanks for that. Husband.”

“Okay, that’s… that’s not real, that’s just the only way I could claim your body--”

“Like that doesn’t sound kinky,” Bucky complained. He winced, and then sat up, the sheet sliding down around his waist. Naked. Of course he was. “You got pants around here that I could borrow?”

“Pants-- pants? Uh. You know, I really didn’t think this was going to work, so I’m not ready for you to be alive just yet?”

“Should I lay back down and die?”

“No, no, I didn’t-- hang on, don’t… don’t go anywhere.”

Bucky scowled. Got up anyway as soon as the guy -- the raising-from-the-dead… Bucky didn’t know what the word was. He wrapped the sheet around his waist, which was harder than he would have thought, one-handed, and ended up holding it in a bunch at his hip. 

There was a piece of paper on one of the countertops that was glowing. When Bucky went to inspect it, it was the marriage license. Dated-- a few years back. Bucky wasn’t sure how long he’d been at the Red Skull’s fortress, but he knew that was 2017, and this was dated 2014. 

Huh. One of his last few memories right before he was snatched off the street was waiting for a date. He’d gotten a match-up and he was supposed to meet his date at a newly opened restaurant downtown.

He’d never made it, and there were times when he thought the date was the whole set up to drop him into his kidnappers’ hands. And sometimes he wondered if his date had been stood up. Had waited for him.

_Tony Stark and ¥ªUƒM¥._

That--

He leaned hard against the counter to hold the sheet in place and touched the paper. It gave off a few sparks and stopped glowing.

_Tony Stark and James Barnes._

Huh.

“Hey there, handsome,” the dead-guy wizard said. “Pants, shirt, shoes. They should all fit.

Bucky looked at the clothes. Looked at the dead-guy wizard. “I might need--” he wanted to say ‘a hand’ and then realized how ridiculous that was.

“Oh, yeah, sure, just drop-- okay, this is seriously awkward, and I’m sorry,” the man said. “My name’s Tony.”

“Yeah, I saw--” Bucky said, jerking his chin at the paper. “Uh, I did-- when I touched it.”

“Oh. So, yeah, okay, it’s absorbed some sympathetic magic from you,” Tony said, looking at it. “James? That’s your name?”

“Mmm,” Bucky agreed. “It’s what my mom called me.”

“It worked! Yay! Well, it’s official now,” Tony said, clapping his hands together gleefully. “We’re married. Drop the sheet.”

“You didn’t even buy me dinner first,” Bucky complained, but he let Tony help him get dressed, because the alternative was even more humiliating.

“Are you hungry? I could buy you dinner.”

“Did you bring me back from the dead because you needed a boyfriend for your mom’s Christmas party or something?”

“Fake dating necromancy, there’s an idea,” Tony said. “But no. I brought you back because I was trying to figure out if it could actually be done. You’re-- you’re a staggering success, really.”

Bucky took a few steps and in fact, was staggering, so there was that. 

“Take it easy,” Tony said. “You’ve been dead all day.”

“So what now?”

Tony blinked. “Uh… I have no idea,” he admitted. “I didn’t expect it to work.”

“You don’t have a plan,” Bucky said.

“I-- have… twelve percent of a plan.”

“Great.”

**Author's Note:**

> references:  
> Mary Shelly's Frankenstein  
> Johnathon Coulton's song Skullcrusher Mountain  
> Princess Bride


End file.
